I've fallen from the blogosphere as of late, but I suppose it's time to start the thing up again. We'll see how long I stay on the wagon this time... or off it... whatever. So I'm writing this in my mom's kitchen, listening to the washer runs at 2:30 AM. Why you ask? Don't you own a washing machine? Yes, I'd answer, but the continuing saga of plumbing problems at my house has rendered that area unusable for at least the rest of the week. Why me, astrologists? I thought I was an Aquarius, shouldn't water behave better for me?*
Anyway, the fix I had done earlier this year to relocate my washer box to a less freezable wall was apparently not done properly. Bad news, it was belching hot water and, thus, steam into my floorboards under my washer for the past week or so. Good news, it's a plumbing companies fault, so I don't have to pay for it. Yippee. Should be all fixed soon. Enough about me, let's discuss some idiots.
It seems that our nation's standards for journalism have fallen greatly in the years since I learned about it in junior high school. I was taught that you had to be held to certain standards, typically things called FACTS when you reported on something. Evidently, these rules have been thrown out in modern journalism and it's turned to "print it if it'll get clicks on our website." No one checks facts, no one looks at things incredulously, no one bothers with it anymore. In the past year, I've seen at least 3 different stories on Yahoo News about Nessie-esque monsters around the world. The proof presented? Bad photos and shaky eyewitness accounts of people who don't spend their time at said body of water year round. Are we really this dense? Doesn't anyone ask the important questions like, "What else could that be?" or "Maybe I can't tell a log in the foggy distance from an alleged monster I'ver heard inhabits this lake?" Occam's razor needs sharpening in most cases.**
Of course, if you have no grasp of reality to begin with, I can see where fact checking might be a foreign concept. Recently, a Fox News anchor (already a dodgy source of facts) alleged that the recently released movie The Muppets has a disturbingly anti-corporate, pro-communism, liberal agenda that it was pushing on American youths. Yeah. That happened. Read it again, I'll wait. Need the actual video?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jl6ekkvWnOE
I can only hope the 9% of people who "liked" this are kidding, but that's hardly the point. The point is that the piece exists in the first place and is treated as though it's serious.
Now, I don't go to Fox for my news; I go there for the occasional cartoon about America's favorite yellow skinned family, but I gather that a fair number of people do get their news from Fox. What kind of moron would think that The Muppets, themselves a corporation, could be anti-corporate? And why does this even qualify as "news?" This is not something that a serious network ought to cover, this is a fluff piece that Entertainment Tonight should look into. I feel like this shows just how out of touch with reality so-called Fox News "journalists" continue to be. The story doesn't matter, the facts don't matter, all that matters is making people paranoid of the "Liberal Agenda." Kermit and company aren't pushing communism just because the villain happens to be a wealthy oil tycoon anymore than Bugs Bunny was for having the same villain in one of his cartoons. I know you don't read this, but please grow up, American media.
I'll try to write in here more often. Comment or complain below.
*And yes, I know that they could twist that around so that water behaves BADLY for me because I'm an Aquarius. It must be nice having a malleable belief system where any result can be misconstrued as a positive outcome... sigh...
**In case you don't know or haven't seen the excellent movie Contact, Occam's Razor is a principle that suggests that the simplest explanation is more often then not true. Ie, the strange objects or lights in the sky are more likely to be (A) man made flying objects, (B) satellites, (C) planets or (D) other atmospheric effects you've never seen than an alien space ship.
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